Self as Cultural Product: An Examination of East Asian and North ...

892 Heine Much

892 Heine Much cross-cultural research has identified differences in control consistent with this view. Comparisons of locus of control scales consistently reveal that East Asians exhibit less of an internal locus of control than do North Americans (e.g. Bond & Tornatzky, 1973). Canadians perceive threatening future life events to be more under their control than do Japanese (Heine & Lehman, 1995). Iyengar and Lepper (1999) found that East Asian children were more willing to surrender their individual choices to their mothers than were Euro-American children. Morling et al. (in press) demonstrated that adjusting situations are more common in Japan, and controlling situations are more common in the United States, and that Japanese-made situations enhance respondents’ feelings of relatedness, whereas American-made situations afforded a greater sense of efficacy. The malleability of the self over the world is also an issue for achievement motivation. The relatively inviolate selves ofNorth Americans suggests they should subscribe more than East Asians to entity theories of self (Heine et al., in press; cf. Dweck & Leggett, 1988). With an entity view of self, achievement is assumed to be anchored in rather innate and fixed abilities and is believed to be resistant to change. With such a view, encounters with failure signal permanent inadequacies of the self and should be particularly distressing, leading to self-protective strategies or attempts to avoid future situations where one might fail again. Clearly, the converse lay theory, an incremental theory of self, where achievement is viewed as hinging on efforts, is by no means rare or discouraged in North America. American culture also lauds the importance of effort and reveres cultural icons of hard work such as Horatio Alger. Indeed, it would appear to be dysfunctional within any culture to eschew the belief that hard work will be rewarded. However, the fluid selves of East Asians suggests that they should more strongly endorse incremental theories of self than North Americans (Heine et al., in press). Cross-cultural comparisons of incremental theories contrasting means on subjective Likert scales (a methodology that is problematic due to reference-group effects; Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz, 2001; Peng, Nisbett, & Wong, 1997) yield mixed evidence for cultural differences (Chiu et al., 1997; Norenzayan, Choi, & Nisbett, 2000); however, methodologies that do not involve comparisons of Likert scale responses yield pronounced cultural differences (Heine et al., in press). That Confucianism emphasizes the importance of fulfilling obligations associated with one’s roles suggests that indi-

SelfasCulturalProduct 893 viduals must have the potential to master the requisite skills of those roles. The roles determine the standards of performance, and it is incumbent upon individuals to adjust themselves accordingly. Cultural tasks of fitting in and achieving interdependence lead to a belief in the improvability of the self in cultures which emphasize hierarchy and mastery of one’s roles. When one has obligations to live up to consensual standards associated with one’s role, failure indicates that one is not doing enough. Failures serve to signify insufficient effort and highlight where individuals need to work harder. Hence, rather than distancing oneself from an achievement situation when one fails, East Asians should meet failure with increased efforts (Heine et al., in press). A series of cross-cultural experiments support this hypothesis (Heine et al., in press). North American participants were found to persist longer on a task after initially succeeding on it, whereas Japanese persisted longer after they had failed. Moreover, these cultural differences in persistence after failure appeared to importantly hinge on the lay theories regarding the role of effort in success. These results support the notion that East Asians are more likely than North Americans to view abilities as malleable. In the context of a culturally sustained incremental theory of self, hard work and diligence come to take on greater moral significance. This is evident in the remarkably positive connotations that the word “effort” entails in East Asia. For example, surveys in Japan of “what is your favorite word?” have revealed that the most popular favorite in Japan is effort, doryoku, closely followed by perseverence, gambaru (Shapiro & Hiatt, 1989). In many ways, East Asian societies are structured such that effort will be met with greater rewards. The civil service exams of China, which extend back for centuries and have greatly influenced the structure of modern-day university entrance exams throughout East Asia, reflect this attitude. Unlike SATs and GREs, which were originally designed as aptitude tests to provide a view into the individual’s abilities that grades missed, entrance exams in East Asia make no pretense of being about abilities. Successful performance on these exams requires the mastery of countless facts, innumerable hours of study, and years spent at the country’s ubiquitous cram schools (Rohlen, 1983). Admittance to a good school in Japan requires a significant amount of effort. Cross-cultural studies of attributions for performance similarly corroborate these differences. North Americans tend to view their successful performances as due to their own inner abilities (although they will

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In recent years, the integrity of food production and distribution has become an issue of wide social concern. The media frequently report on cases of food contamination as well as on the risks of hormones and cloning. Journalists, documentary filmmakers, and activists have had their say, but until now a survey of the latest research on the history of the modern food-provisioning system-the network that connects farms and fields to supermarkets and the dining table-has been unavailable. In Food Chains, Warren Belasco and Roger Horowitz present a collection of fascinating case studies that reveal the historical underpinnings and institutional arrangements that compose this system. The dozen essays in Food Chains range widely in subject, from the pig, poultry, and seafood industries to the origins of the shopping cart. The book examines what it took to put ice in nineteenth-century refrigerators, why Soviet citizens could buy ice cream whenever they wanted, what made Mexican food popular in France, and why Americans turned to commercial pet food in place of table scraps for their dogs and cats. Food Chains goes behind the grocery shelves, explaining why Americans in the early twentieth century preferred to buy bread rather than make it and how Southerners learned to like self-serve shopping. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the value of a historical perspective on the modern food-provisioning system.